Update #16

[Tom Bottiglieri]

People don't look at the robot as a dangerous machine. Its amazing to see how many times you can count a team testing autonomous code with the whole team gathered 4 feet around the robot. Just food for thought.

I was on a small team in high school. We didn't bring any power tools to events more than a cordless drill and soldering iron. Somehow, we managed to get by for 9 years without missing a match due to a broken robot. In fact, we knew waiting in line for the machine shop would be a bad idea so we made it a point in our design process to use modular parts.

With that being said, it is apparent that this rule does not affect me very much. Yet, I still think it is bogus. I agree with Paul and company in saying that the latest efforts put forth by Manchester do not seem to agree with the best interest of teams or mentors. Perhaps we should take up what Dan said, and create some kind of group to obtain leverage over pathetic rules like this.

I think Paul has made this fact very clear: FIRST needs us more than we need it. With no mentors, there would be no mentoring of students. Isn't that the whole point of this program? Do we really want a whole bunch of untrained high schoolers running around with dangerous robots in a convention center full of people? I'm not saying get up and leave in an anarchial fashion, but there's no reason for us mentors to put hundreds of hours a month into a program that will not let us do the job we are supposed to do effectively.